Feature – Page 6 – FasterSkier

In Italy, four years after the COVID Games, Olympic teams are still isolating

Nathaniel HerzFebruary 4, 2026

This article was made possible through the generous support of our voluntary subscribers. If you value coverage like this, please support FasterSkier with a voluntary subscription. PREDAZZO, ITALY — The Olympics have traditionally been known as a kind of sports melting pot, where competitors from different backgrounds and countries could share meals and trade pins at tight-knight athletes’ villages. For winter sports, though, those social traditions ground to a halt at the COVID Olympics in China in...

Feature Olympics US Ski Team

Bernie Nelson and When Control Changes Hands

Matthew VoisinFebruary 4, 2026

This article was made possible through the generous support of our voluntary subscribers. If you value coverage like this, please support FasterSkier with a voluntary subscription. At some point before every race, there is a moment when the conversation ends. The skis are ready. All the questions have been answered. The athlete has described, more than once, how the ski felt through the camber, how it released, and how it held when needed. Their part...

Feature Olympics US Ski Team

Eli Brown – The Ski Caddy

Matthew VoisinFebruary 3, 2026

This article was made possible through the generous support of our voluntary subscribers. If you value coverage like this, please support FasterSkier with a voluntary subscription. On race mornings, when the athletes are still quiet, and the stadium hasn’t yet decided what kind of day it wants to be, Eli Brown is already working through choices that won’t appear anywhere in the results sheet. Brown is a technician for the U.S. Cross-Country Ski Team, a...

Feature Olympics

Hunter Wonders, Flying by Instrument

Matthew VoisinFebruary 2, 2026

This article was made possible through the generous support of our voluntary subscribers. If you value coverage like this, please support FasterSkier with a voluntary subscription. When U.S. Ski & Snowboard released its roster for the 2026 Olympic Winter Games, Hunter Wonders’ name appeared without emphasis. No asterisk. No parenthetical explanation. Just another line in a list that had already absorbed months of speculation, anxiety, and arithmetic. To most readers, the name represented a straightforward...

Feature Olympics US Ski Team

Paul Choudoir — “The Right-Brain Grinder”

Matthew VoisinFebruary 1, 2026

This article was made possible through the generous support of our voluntary subscribers. If you value coverage like this, please support FasterSkier with a voluntary subscription. A Portfolio, Not a Resume Paul Choudoir did not set out to work at the Olympic Games. He did not study engineering. He did not grow up in a wax room, nor did he apprentice under a legendary grinder with a machine humming in the background. He went to school...

Feature Olympics

Lauren Jortberg and the Long Way Around to the Olympics

Matthew VoisinJanuary 29, 2026

This article was made possible through the generous support of our voluntary subscribers. If you value coverage like this, please support FasterSkier with a voluntary subscription. By the time Lauren Jortberg made the U.S. Olympic Cross-Country Ski Team, the achievement arrived not as a burst of disbelief or relief, but as something quieter and stranger: a moment that required processing. “It is a lot to take in,” she said, speaking from Seefeld, Austria in the...

Feature Training

Using Heart Rate Variability to Guide Training

Jim GalanesJanuary 27, 2026

This article was made possible through the generous support of our voluntary subscribers. If you value coverage like this, please support FasterSkier with a voluntary subscription. In my coaching and consulting work, I get a lot of questions about using heart rate variability (HRV) to guide training. This is a follow-up to a previous article, where I want to move from theory to practice and show how HRV has been one of the most valuable...

Feature World Cup

Matintalo First, Diggins Second: A Classic 20 K Test Before the Olympics

Matthew VoisinJanuary 25, 2026

This coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and A Hall Mark of Excellence A Hall Mark of Excellence Award. To learn more about A Hall Mark of Excellence Award, or to learn how you can support FasterSkier’s coverage, please contact info@fasterskier.com. The sky above the Goms Nordic Centre on Sunday morning had the washed-out look of winter at altitude — pale and reflective. Snow had fallen overnight —...

Feature World Cup

So Many Red Suits . . . And Klaebo In a League of His Own

John TeafordJanuary 25, 2026

This coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and A Hall Mark of Excellence Award. To learn more about A Hall Mark of Excellence Award, or to learn how you can support FasterSkier’s coverage, please contact info@fasterskier.com. Klaebo wins . . . we saw that coming. Let’s face it: cross-country ski racing can be kinda boring. Races are long (even the short ones), speeds are really not that high,...

Feature World Cup

Schumacher! Two Days, Two Podiums

John TeafordJanuary 24, 2026

This coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and A Hall Mark of Excellence Award. To learn more about A Hall Mark of Excellence Award, or to learn how you can support FasterSkier’s coverage, please contact info@fasterskier.com. Maybe the Americans really are that good . . . With the Olympic Games just around the corner, American men (lots of them!) are surging toward the front of the World Cup...

Feature World Cup

Svahn Returns to the Top as Olympic Stakes Sharpen in Goms Women’s Classic Sprint

Matthew VoisinJanuary 24, 2026

This coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and A Hall Mark of Excellence A Hall Mark of Excellence Award. To learn more about A Hall Mark of Excellence Award, or to learn how you can support FasterSkier’s coverage, please contact info@fasterskier.com. By the time the women clicked into their classic skis in the upper Rhône Valley on Saturday morning, the sprint course in Goms had already made its...

Feature World Cup

Olympic Preview, Sort Of—USA Third in Goms Team Sprint

John TeafordJanuary 23, 2026

This coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and A Hall Mark of Excellence Award. To learn more about A Hall Mark of Excellence Award, or to learn how you can support FasterSkier’s coverage, please contact info@fasterskier.com. For the skiing stars of Norway, World Cup victories are commonplace—almost expected. For the skiers of most other nations, any World Cup podium appearance is a career-defining event. That said, some of...

Feature World Cup

Goms Wasn’t the Answer — It Was the Test

Matthew VoisinJanuary 23, 2026

This coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and A Hall Mark of Excellence Award. To learn more about A Hall Mark of Excellence Award, or to learn how you can support FasterSkier’s coverage, please contact info@fasterskier.com. There are World Cup races that arrive like answers, and others that arrive like mirrors. The women’s freestyle Team Sprint in Goms belonged firmly to the second category — not because the...

Feature Olympics

U.S. Names Eight Women and Eight Men to 2026 Olympic Cross-Country Team

FasterSkierJanuary 22, 2026

U.S. Ski & Snowboard has announced its Olympic cross-country ski team for the 2026 Milano Cortina Olympic Winter Games, naming eight women and eight men to represent the United States in Val di Fiemme, Italy, from Feb. 6–22, 2026. While the women were allocated eight Olympic starting positions outright, the men’s team was originally allotted seven. That number increased to eight after another nation declined to use one of its quota spots, allowing the United...

Feature The Devon Kershaw Show US Ski Team World Cup

The Devon Kershaw Show: Grab a handful of Swix, we’re recapping Oberhof

Nathaniel HerzJanuary 20, 2026

This article was made possible through the generous support of our voluntary subscribers. If you value coverage like this, please support FasterSkier with a voluntary subscription. Love episodes like this? Help keep them coming. Feature stories like this one take time, access, and care to produce. If you value thoughtful storytelling and independent ski journalism, please consider becoming a Voluntary Subscriber. Your support directly fuels the work we do to cover the people, places, and moments...

Feature Olympics

The Cost of Being the Best: Norway Finally Locks In Its Olympic Squad

Matthew VoisinJanuary 20, 2026

This article was made possible through the generous support of our voluntary subscribers. If you value coverage like this, please support FasterSkier with a voluntary subscription. Norway’s greatest competitive advantage in cross-country skiing has always been depth. In an Olympic selection season, that depth becomes a headache. When the federation gathered to finalize its 2026 team, the conversation was not about who belonged at the Games — those results and calculus had been logged. It was...

Feature World Cup

Nyenget Takes Oberhof 10 k Classic as Americans Build Momentum

Matthew VoisinJanuary 18, 2026

This coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and A Hall Mark of Excellence Award. To learn more about A Hall Mark of Excellence Award, or to learn how you can support FasterSkier’s coverage, please contact info@fasterskier.com. On Sunday morning in Oberhof, the snow had the kind of sheen that tells the truth before the clock ever does. It glittered under a clean winter sun, polished by a freeze–thaw...

Feature World Cup

Ilar Surges, Diggins Rebounds in Oberhof 10 k

John TeafordJanuary 18, 2026

This coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and A Hall Mark of Excellence Award. To learn more about A Hall Mark of Excellence Award, or to learn how you can support FasterSkier’s coverage, please contact info@fasterskier.com. When it comes to World Cup cross-country ski racing, season-long progress can be difficult for spectators and commentators to assess. It’s always hard to tell: are skiers getting faster? Are they fading?...

Feature World Cup

Where the Snow Hardens and Decisions Stick

Matthew VoisinJanuary 17, 2026

This coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and A Hall Mark of Excellence Award. To learn more about A Hall Mark of Excellence Award, or to learn how you can support FasterSkier’s coverage, please contact info@fasterskier.com. By the time the stadium lights fully took over in Oberhof, the snow had begun to change its mind. What started as a pliable winter surface—the kind that both softens and creates...

Feature World Cup

Oberhof Freestyle Sprint—Lars Heggen Proves His Point

John TeafordJanuary 17, 2026

This coverage is made possible through the generous support of Marty and Kathy Hall and A Hall Mark of Excellence Award. To learn more about A Hall Mark of Excellence Award, or to learn how you can support FasterSkier’s coverage, please contact info@fasterskier.com. Some day, Norway won’t be the only force in Men’s World Cup cross-country skiing. Some day, the participation of other nations will truly matter. Other nations will hear their anthems played, other...

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